Gerard Oleksiak, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, has been all over the state lately to visit CareerLink offices and discuss PAsmart, a new workforce development initiative. Among his stops so far: Chester County, Blair County and Erie County. His stop in Allentown...

Monday morning, the office is full of chatter about the weekend. If I’m lucky, I have nothing to say. A great weekend for me is one where my sofa and I get well-acquainted. That doesn’t happen enough. When it does, however, I happily have nothing to report. It’s quite different for the posse of...

All this talk about jobs lately got me thinking about a topic that makes almost every successful person I’ve met smile: summer jobs. You know — working a stand at Dorney Park, lifeguarding at your community pool, waiting tables at a restaurant down the shore or mowing lawns in the neighborhood....

Is life more expensive for America's millennials? We may hate to admit it, but yes. New data reveal millennials don't earn as much, pay more for higher education and put off home purchases longer than Gen Xers and baby boomers did. Note a stunning report from the news site Axios, which shows just...

The “seven-month nightmare” that would cost Jeffrey Armstrong his job and his home all started when Wawa spoiled his lunch. Armstrong, a 40-year-old former Wawa worker, thought his store's lunch break policy violated Delaware state law, since it didn't guarantee employees a half-hour uninterrupted...

You can now fill up your tank and pick up some suds at one of the three Sheetz locations in the Lehigh Valley. Sheetz, a family-owned and operated convenience store, announced Tuesday it has added beer sales to eight additional stores throughout Pennsylvania, including 3201 Schoenersville Road,...

A bipartisan group of 35 Pennsylvania House members, led by Rep. Frank Farry (R-Langhorne), is sponsoring legislation that would grease the bureaucratic wheels in local governments so that wireless companies can place thousands of 5G mini-cell antennas near roads, or in other publicly controlled...

Jane Hardy, the chief executive of a company that makes lawn-care equipment, says she had to lay off 75 employees this summer because of President Donald Trump's trade war. As she fights to keep her southern Indiana business going, Hardy is one of several manufacturers warning the White House that,...

On Aug. 18, my 35-year-old son died. It was sudden and shocking. His widow and two children reside in Texas. He was the breadwinner. Amid my own turmoil, I had to go to Texas and help figure out finances, find them a new home, arrange a funeral and much more. Then I needed time to mourn. As a business...

The next time you use Uber, check your bill. The trip could turn out to be expensive— not just for the distance but for a type of fraud that is on the rise. It's called “vomit fraud,” a scam repeatedly denounced in social networks yet still taking place around the world. What is it? Passengers...

If you live in Coopersburg and are in need of a way to catch a bus from LANTA, good news is coming your way. Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority announced Wednesday that it will christen its new Flex Route 505 in Coopersburg on Friday. A dedication of the service will take place at...

Four established manufacturers and two early-stage companies in the Lehigh Valley will share nearly $535,000 in the latest round of public funding through Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin said in a news release Tuesday that it is providing matching funding...

The Allentown Fair is looking for workers. A news release Monday said the Fair gates department is taking applications for non-carnival paid jobs as ticket takers, sellers, cashiers and a limited number of leader positions. Candidates, who must be 18 or older, should submit their work interest,...

Talk about not leaving the old neighborhood. Air Products announced this month that not only will its new headquarters remain in the Lehigh Valley, but it will just bounce down the road a mile or so in Upper Macungie Township. It’s a combination of a downsize and an upgrade. This is exactly what...

Comcast Corp. will no longer seek to compete with Walt Disney Co. for a swath of 21st Century Fox Inc.'s entertainment assets, choosing to focus instead on winning control of the British pay-TV service Sky. Following a bidding war with Disney, Comcast concluded that the price for the Fox assets...

The PPL Foundation has awarded more than $450,000 in grants to more than 70 nonprofit organizations across central and eastern Pennsylvania, supporting efforts to improve adult literacy programs, giving small business developers a boost and sparking student interest in science and technology. In...

I love people, I always have. My mom taught me to accept people as they are, find humor in their idiosyncrasies and not to judge before looking in the mirror at myself. She reminded me we’re all human and have our assets and faults. Thankfully, I’ve spent the majority of my life working with people...

Thieves need only a minute, sometimes just a second, to pilfer your credit card data. “Back in the beginning, they got the imprint of credit cards from the carbon copies they dug out of the trash,” says William Noonan, a U.S. Secret Service special agent formerly in charge of the agency's cyber...

Applications to operate casino-style gambling online in Pennsylvania were rolling in ahead of Monday's deadline for the state's casino owners to get a license at a discounted rate of $10 million. The deadline arrived as Pennsylvania is in the midst of an aggressive gambling expansion as the state...

American Bank said Monday it posted second-quarter net income of $1.5 million, up more than 20 percent during the same April -to-June period in 2017. Here is a summary of what else happened: What’s the bottom line? American Bank’s profit, which rose from $1.3 million during the second quarter last...

The tween riding in the back seat finally asked, “What is that thing you keep moving up there?” She had never seen “that thing” known as a six-speed stick shift, a manual transmission, a manny tranny, a handshaker, a Millennial theft deterrent. To her, it was a relic, an oddity, a rotary phone...

Carpenters learn early: “Measure twice, cut once.” Holly Dearworth appreciates the motto, especially after completing a week-long “Let’s Build Camp” that’s designed to help teenage girls explore construction trades and learn through hands-on experience. On Friday, on the last day of camp at the...

It’s one of the nation’s key economic challenges. No, for once we’re not talking about tariffs, retaliatory tariffs or a looming trade war. Guess again. This time around, we’re referring to the talent gap, the skill set mismatch that exists in many growing economic regions across the country. It’s...

At Costco, where the American Dream is sold in bulk, you can buy a bathrobe, a new set of tires, a 7 1/2-pound jar of steak seasoning and a 36-roll box of toilet paper. And while you're prowling the aisles for giant containers of food, you can eat: The brand's food court has a cult following for...

The crime described by federal authorities last year — a bitcoin heist of more than $40 million that left even experts flummoxed — would have been one of the most audacious and technically sophisticated cybercrimes in the short history of the supposedly fraud-proof cryptocurrency. But by the time...

Allegiant Air's pilots are fed up with what they say is a “sham” scheduling system, and they're prepared to strike to get it fixed. The Las Vegas airline's pilots announced that just under 94 percent of its union members voted to approve a strike “should it become necessary,” according to a release....

President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court may prove a crucial conservative vote in cases defining protections for gay and lesbian workers, the scope of union organizing, and the rights of workers to take their grievances to court, according to labor law experts. On Monday night, Trump...

The summer is high season for thieves claiming to be from the IRS and hoping to scam people out of their money. That warning comes from the IRS, which notes that scammers use phone calls, emails and even in-person visits to try to scare people into turning over funds. Scammers go after small businesses...

Bring up the subject of “branding” at most workplaces and the conversation will likely center on marketing strategy, promoting your company’s products or services, graphic design that will attract new customers and so on. However, marketing only to your customers is one-dimensional thinking. Most...

The trade war that erupted Friday between the U.S. and China carries a major risk of escalation that could weaken investment, depress spending, unsettle financial markets and slow the global economy. The opening shots were fired just after midnight, when the Trump administration imposed a 25 percent...

The U.S. and Chinese governments have been flashing a lot of bravado just before firing the first shots in a conflict that risks erupting into a mutually damaging trade war. “China will not bow in the face of threats and blackmail, nor will it be shaken in its resolve to defend global free trade,”...

My wife and I recently returned from a trip to Ireland and England. We are both of Irish descent on our father’s sides of the families. Although we’re in our 50s, we had yet to visit the Emerald Isle. Like the rest of those with Irish surnames, we’d been subjected to the regular “you have to go”...

Even in the MeToo era, with heightened sensitivity to sexual harassment claims and fears of damaging headlines, companies might take an allegation of sexual misconduct a little less seriously than they do a claim of financial fraud. A new study suggests — at least when it comes to their public...

Movie stars lent an air of celebrity glitz to a gritty seaside gambling resort Thursday as Atlantic City reclaimed two of its shuttered casinos, and more than 6,000 of the 11,000 jobs it lost during a brutal stretch of casino shutdowns. The Hard Rock, which was the former Trump Taj Mahal, held...

Just how difficult is it to start a business in Pennsylvania? The answer can vary due to the complexity and type of business, said Michael McManus, director of the newly created Pennsylvania Business One-Stop Shop. But the state wants to do more to help, said McManus, who came to Bethlehem on June...

The Trump administration hasn't acted yet on a stalled 2016 federal proposal to update U.S. overtime pay rules for the first time in 14 years. So, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is pushing a proposal he says could boost overtime pay (or cut hours) for nearly half a million Pennsylvania workers by 2022....

Kalahari Resorts and Conventions recently announced the facility's second expansion, a project that will double the size of the convention center. Officials announced the project, which will add 105,000 square feet to the preexisting convention center space, at a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday....

The Northampton Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, a deep-rooted organization known for its gardening and farming supplies, kicked off a going-out-of-business sale Wednesday at its store in Tatamy. The popular store at 300 Bushkill St., which has been open about 80 years, could shut its doors...

This has been an exciting, stressful and exhilarating two weeks. I moved into a new home and am extremely excited for my daughter Christina and her husband Jeff to move into my old house and raise my granddaughters in the home she grew up in. Chrissy has lived in Manhattan and parts of North Jersey,...

How low can it go? The Lehigh Valley’s unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in May, a depth not plumbed in more than a decade and a reminder of the region’s tight labor market. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry said Tuesday that the decline was one-half of a percentage point below...

People are winning and losing money again for the first time in years at two Atlantic City casinos that had been shut down. Monday marked the first day of so-called “soft play” at the Ocean Resort Casino and the Hard Rock. The testing period is designed to see how the casinos' equipment and technology...